EDGE Boston

A Chicago-based group working for immigration reform finds that it has to combat more than commonplace anti-immigrant sentiment, because they champion the rights of GLBT immigrants.

The Chicago Tribune published a story on the challenges faced by organizers of the new Global Gays Initiative (www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-gayimmig_25dec25,0,1115312.story), which seeks to overturn outdated and unnecessary travel restrictions on HIV positive people entering the United States, as well as promote the human rights of illegal aliens who are GLBT and seek protections for gay and lesbian families in which an American citizen is partnered with a non-citizen.

The Tribune article cited the work of Tania Unzueta, an immigration rights activist who takes an interest in the stories of GLBT immigrants such as Victoria Arellano, a transgendered Mexican woman living with AIDS who was apprehended as an illegal alien and detained in San Pedro, where detention center officials refused her the medication she needed.

Arellano died last summer, but, said Unzueta in the Tribune article, little note was taken; instead, the story of another illegal alien, Elvira Arellano, whose name was similar but whose story was markedly different, captured attention: Elvira had sought refuge in a Los Angeles-area church, but eventually left he church and was deported. It was a dramatic story that did not have to acknowledge HIV, AIDS, or the existence of GLBT people among immigrants.

But immigration activists took notice, and have increased their efforts to ensure that the federal government take seriously the medical needs of detainees being held pending their repatriation.

Along with that concern is a wish to see a broad exclusion of HIV positive travelers from entering U.S borders, a policy that was implemented two decades ago and has been kep tin place ever since, despite a better understanding of HIV: it is not spread through casual contact, for example, and can better be managed through medication now than in the past.

The article quoted an attorney with Heartland Alliance, a group dedicated to assisting HIV positive people negotiate the bureaucracy involved with obtaining special permission to enter the U.S. despite their medical status.

Said Jonathan Eoloff, "It’s a very draconian, outdated, HIV-phobic policy," according to the Tribune story.

The article said that new guidelines were advocated recently by the Dept. of Homeland Security with regard to HIV positive travelers.

Homeland Security suggested that HIV positive travelers from abroad be required to bring with them a fully supply of medications for the duration of their stay in the United States.

The article said that Homeland Security also recommended that HIV positive travelers be required to show that already have health insurance that will pay for any medical services they might need while in America.

GLBT families in which one person is a foreign national are another area of concern for gay and lesbian immigrant advocates.

Even when a person is here legally, as with a student or work visa, GLBT families face a ticking clock as the expiration of that visa approaches, a situation that has GLBT immigration reformers looking to have the existing rules re-molded in a way that will be more equitable to gay and lesbian couples, who are not allowed access to the protections of marriage on the federal level, and who can marry only in one of America’s 50 states.

According to the Tribune article, about 36,000 gay and lesbian couples in this country are comprised of one citizen and one foreign national.

An attempt to bring legislation before the House has been led by Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of N.Y., though without result as yet, the Tribune reported.

But GLBT immigration advocates have learned to reach out to their heterosexual counterparts. The article said that gay and lesbian immigration reformers have educated a group called the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.

Said that group’s director, Joshua Hoyt, "We are learning about the issues in the LGBT community and want to make sure that our immigration laws are humane for those communities and respect their basic human dignity as well."